♫We’ve come a long….long….ways♪

When I was a kid, the main commercials on TV were about cigarettes. I clearly remember one of the jingles was to women telling them they had their own cigarette now. I don’t recall the name brand but the jingle went

♫ You’ve come a long ways baby ♪

♪To get where you got to today♫

♪You’ve got your own cigarette now baby ♪

♫You’ve come a long, long, ways ♫.

Sometimes that song comes to mind when I see how far we have come. We have been married 28 years. We have been through a flood where our home flooded 42 inches, a fire, where we lost everything, cancer twice for Pookie, a stem cell transplant, cancer once for me, and a lungectomy for me and we are still standing. There are lots of people out there who have had it a lot worse than us and would trade places with us so I dare not whine.

I remember when no one understood what we were wanting to build with HCR. We couldn’t explain it (because we had never seen or heard of anything like this) but we knew we were to build it and they would come. I would go down the road in the car and talk to God out loud and say God we need help. Electricians…..come to us, crafty builders….come to us, contractors……come to us helpers…..come to us, fund raisers…..come to us, web people……come to us, finances…..come to us. We not only did not know where to find them but we don’t like asking. We want them to want to help us because they want to not because of any pressure. God has been so faithful.

Last night, I received an email via our website and a lady told me she was getting married in 2018. She said, I want my bridal party to do something for Hope Cancer Retreat in memory of my grandma who died with cancer. What can I do? Can I raise funds? What do you need? As I emailed her back I first thanked for wanting to remember her grandma through her wedding party and HCR. I said you have never been here so first we need to visit and you need to tour our place to understand it. I went to bed thinking of the prayers I use to pray when I would call things to us. You see I am convinced things don’t just happen to you and fall in your lap. Your heart has to be stable, and you have to be constantly making wise decisions to the best of your knowledge, you have to have sown…in order to reap. I think people want to be a part of something successful that is growing not dying. This lady set an appointment to come out in another week and she emailed me back and was so excited and kept thanking me for getting back to her and allowing her to come.

♫We’ve come a long ways baby,♪ to get where we’ve got to today.♫ It hasn’t been a church that has backed us….it has been people who were called to leave their DNA on HCR. God is our Source, but God uses people. Today I am so thankful to just be the head cheerleader.